Spring Group has moved its business environment on-line with the
development of a fully integrated web operating system.
The company, which provides IT recruitment, training and
consultancy services, says the new system has been designed to
streamline its recruitment business and increase its efficiency in
sourcing IT personnel for clients.
According to Laurent Chen, chief technology officer at Spring,
the system allows all administrative issues - from candidate
registration, vacancy posting and requirement matching, through to
contract signing, time sheet management and billing - to be
completed on-line and in a "totally transparent" environment. "We
are effectively opening up our business to customers, and freeing
our recruiters from time-consuming administrative tasks so that
they can devote more attention to our candidates and clients," he
explains.
Networking leader Cisco Systems is the first technology company
confirmed to participate in a pilot programme of the product. As
part of the deal, Spring's staffing arm will manage the IT
recruitment needs of Cisco and its partners in Europe, the Middle
East and Africa, via a customised portal, powered by the new web
operating system.
According to the agency, the channel will be used to create a
"community" for Cisco and its partners, giving them access to a
"private talent pool" of IT candidates with the most-up-to-date
skills sets.
Spring also believes the portal will give it and Cisco a three
to six month "lead-time" in closing the skills gap and identifying
future needs.
Earlier this month, Spring released its interim results and
revealed it had made a loss of almost £5m during the half-year
period to the end of October 2000. According to the group's
financial report, a "slower than expected" recovery of its IT
staffing arm, Spring.com - which alone reported a loss of £2.6m -
was partly to blame, as was increasing pressure on margins in the
IT staffing market generally, and company investment in technology
and new services.
Chairman Jon Chait said the firm had anticipated a depressed set
of results as it "re-oriented" its strategic focus, but added that
he believed the group had made "significant progress" towards
achieving its goal of becoming a "leader in human capital
management" through a global web-enabled business model. He also
announced that the group had agreed to sell two of its "non-core
businesses", Spring Skills and Spring Education, to Protocol
Associates NV for £71.9m.